


I Saw You

by kosekardemomme



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:52:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9476537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosekardemomme/pseuds/kosekardemomme
Summary: This is what Even was talking about when he told Isak, "Uh, I saw you on the first day of school."





	

Even is a block away from Hartvig Nissen when the anxiety hits. The school’s white, blocky form emerges from the trees and he realizes this is real.

He hadn’t really wanted to transfer from Elvebakken, but there hadn’t really been a choice. The school administration hadn’t outright forbidden him from going back, but the principal and counsellors had strongly implied that it was a bad idea. They talked about how “the situation was still raw,” and how it might “disrupt his learning experience” if he went back. He took that to mean he wasn’t welcome. The rumor mill must still have been going strong. He was probably a laughingstock. Great.

He could only hope that those rumors hadn’t spread to Nissen. 

He was early, but not early enough for the schoolyard to be empty. There were plenty of students, either meandering on their own or grouped in loose knots, talking loudly, laughing about the summer. Before walking through the gates and onto school property, he stopped and took a deep breath. This was it. Fresh start. He took that step forward and that was it: the new year had started.

Even walks through the yard toward the front doors, eyes down. He feels like a famous person, hiding from prying eyes. There was plenty of crossover between Nissen and Bakka—you never knew where a friend-of-a-friend could be lurking. Someone who knew about all the things he had done.

_Is this what the whole year is going to be like?_ he asks himself. _Am I going to be afraid to look anyone in the eye? Am I going to dread coming here every day because coming here means being along, in a cage?_

The answers are yes, yes, and yes. 

Those yeses make him raise his head. Even doesn’t like them. He doesn’t want to live them, and he doesn’t have to. His last therapist had tried to drill into his head the fact that he could control his emotions and feelings, but until this moment he never believed him, never believed he was strong enough to do that. Now the concept snaps into place like a dislocated bone, like it belonged there in his head the whole time. Maybe he couldn’t control most of his emotions or compulsions, but he could maybe take control of this mindset.

Halfway toward the front doors, Even gets tired of being scared. Fuck the rumors—ducking his head was going to get real old real fast. Fuck it. He lifts his head and looks around.

And no one is looking at him. Holy shit, no one is looking at him. He stops and turns all the way around, unable to believe it. This is how his head works—he needs an overabundance of visible proof before he’ll believe what his brain tells him. But it’s true: no one is looking at him.

On their way around the schoolyard, his eyes stop on a group of four boys loitering near the fence. He can’t explain why his eyes lock onto them, but his whole body seems to be telling him “don’t look away.” He sorts the information being conveyed to his brain via his optic nerve: four boys. One with thick eyebrows and curly hair, one with longish, lank blond hair, one black with buzzed hair, and one with a maroon snapback smashed down onto blond curls. The first three boys are talking and laughing, but the last one—his brain nicknames him Snapback—stares off into the middle distance. Even follows the line of his sight, but doesn’t see anything worth staring at with that level of intensity. Snapback looks worried, like the first day of school holds something daunting in store for him. 

This boy is cute in a heartbreaking way. He’s wearing the same thing as everyone else—hoodie, jeans, backpack thrown over one shoulder—and standing in a group of people, but he looks alone. His eyebrows are strong, thick dashes, furrowed as he stares. His eyes look guarded and hard, too hard for a kid who can’t be older than seventeen, if that. Despite that, he looks soft, and Even thinks it’s because of his lips. His lips—oh, God, his lips—are thin and vulnerable. They look like it wouldn’t take much, just a word or a thought, for them to wobble and for him to cry. 

Even can’t stop fucking staring at this kid. Why? What is it about him? Why is Even—a guy with a girlfriend, a long-term, serious girlfriend—unable to stop watching this young punk? Why can’t he stop thinking about this kid’s lips? He’s absolutely, one-hundred percent certain he wants to kiss those lips. He’s nowhere near able to cope with that information, but that doesn’t stop it from being true. 

The school bell rings, jolting Snapback out of his spell. He grins at his friends, punches their shoulders, and off they go toward the front door. Toward Even.

Even darts inside the school before they draw near, into the school office. He’s buzzing, but it has nothing to do with being the new kid. The secretary talks him through where to go, and he nods along. When he steps out into the hall, he realizes he wasn’t listening to her—his head was completely full of that random boy. He turns around and goes back in to ask the secretary to repeat herself. She looks at him like he’s crazy.

_You are crazy,_ he reminds himself. _You have to remember that. Things get into your head and hang on and you can’t control it—that’s probably what this boy is. You can’t trust yourself, and you have eighteen years’ worth of proof of that fact. You can’t trust your feelings or your thoughts or your desires or what you think are your needs._

_Sonja,_ he thinks, as hard as he can. _Sonja, Sonja, Sonja._

But he sees that boy again in the cafetiria. His heartrate increases. He drops his wallet in the cafetiria line and fumbles his change, spilling it everywhere. He watches the boy and feels an obsession coming on, and knows he’ll be powerless to stop it. Once his brain takes hold of something, it won’t let go until it’s tried to kill him. It’s happened a hundred times before.

He can’t trust his feelings, but these ones feel different. 

He can’t trust his emotions, but these ones feel real.

Maybe he can’t trust, but he can hope.


End file.
